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A Major European Port for the 18th Century Slave Trade
A fine detailed large-scale map of Nantes, at the height of the French slave trade.
This impressive city plan is a reduced size version of the 4-sheet map produced by François Cacault, who was primarily known as a road engineer, and laid the framework for the late 18th century beautification of the city. First published in 1759, Cacault's map is the finest map of Nantes from the time when it controlled -- and was substantially enriched by -- the French slave trade. The map shows a city that was evolving beyond its important role as a regional port and entrance to the Loire Valley into a central participant in the Triangular Trade.
The highly decorative map contains a title cartouche at the upper right, a dedication cartouche at the upper left.
Le Rouge has added additional embellishments to the map, including the coats of arms of Belabre, Premion, Colet, Periselle, Portie and Grout d'Hollande, along with a list of 57 named streets.
To the west of the city is shown the construction docks where ten vessels are shown in production. There are several monasteries and convents, some of the Capuchin Order. The Château des ducs de Bretagne occupies the bank of the Loire just to the east of the city. The map is interesting in its focus on the alluvial plain, which occupies a large portion of the image.
The map stretches from Hameau de Pirmil in the south, to the Capuchin hermitage in the west, just north of the Place Viarme, and to the east of the suburbs of St. Clement and Richebourg.
The Slave Trade in Nantes
Nantes had long been an important French port city; situated just up the Loire River from the Bay of Biscay, and it occupied an ideal position of access to the interior of France. In 1685, with the passage of the Code Noir and the legalization of the slave trade, the city's traders began building and financing expeditions to the West African coast.
In the mid-18th century, the city controlled around 50% of the slave trade in France. Almost all of the slaves owned and shipped by Nantes firms ended up in French Antilles colonies. French slave ships frequently sold their human cargo in Haiti, where plantation owners were often from Nantes.
In the 18th century, over 1400 voyages left Nantes to buy African captives. In its entire one-hundred-and-fifty-year history in the slave trade, Nantes slave traders were responsible for transporting more than 500,000 men and women to the Americas.
The slave trade generated profits which were spent on stately homes, civic projects, and the like, but it also gave rise to flourishing related industries, namely those that produced goods for which slaves could be purchased in Africa. Textiles were commonly traded for slaves and so by 1780 Nantes had more than 10 textile mills, employing some 4,500 workers.
In the 1750s before the completion of this plan, ships from Nantes were setting the standard in the Triangular Trade; the Saint-Phillipe, which was owned by the Jogue brothers, made the middle passage crossing with 462 slaves in 25 days. Even after the slave trade was officially ended in 1818, the trade out of Nantes continued; in the decade following, there were 305 voyages to the African coasts from the Nantes docks.
Rarity
The map is extremely rare. OCLC locates only a facsimile of the map in the Bibliotheque National de France.
George-Louis Le Rouge (1712-1790), though known for his work in Paris, was originally born Georg Ludwig of Hanover, Germany. He grew up and was educated in Hanover, after which he became a surveyor and military engineer. Around 1740, however, Le Rouge moved to Paris and set up shop as an engraver and publisher on the Rue des Grands Augustins. It was at this time that he changed his name, adopting a French pseudonym that would later become quite famous.
Le Rouge spent much of his forty-year career translating various works from English to French, and his cartographic influence often came from English maps. His experience as a surveyor and engineer in Germany made him a skilled and prolific cartographer, and he produced thousands of charts, maps, atlases, and plans. His work spans from garden views and small-town plans to huge, multiple-continent maps. Le Rouge eventually accepted the position of Geographical Engineer for Louid XV, the King of France.
Later in life, Le Rouge became well-known for publishing North American maps, such as in his Atlas ameriquain septentrional of 1778. One of Le Rouge’s other more famous works is the Franklin/Folger chart of the Gulf Stream, which he worked on with Benjamin Franklin. Franklin and Le Rouge corresponded around 1780 and collaborated to create this map, a French version of Franklin’s famous chart which was originally printed in 1769.
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